Just at press time it was reported in a trade journal that on 3/28, the WWF would announce that the XFL would air in prime time on Saturday nights on NBC through a deal put together by Dick Ebersol. Ebersol and McMahon were business partners in the 80s for the old Saturday Night's Main Events. The ramifications are huge of this both for football and wrestling. It is expected that the WWF's new television deal would be announced imminently as well.

A correction on the TV situation provided the CBS deal is signed and Raw moves to TNN. Vince McMahon gave the word that they wouldn't allow duplicate programming in Canada so if the deal goes down as expected, Raw would be off TSN. TNN has far less coverage in Canada than TSN, but with the popular WWF programming, it would encourage more cable systems to pick up TNN. It would also lead to less editing because TSN was under fire from the CRTC due to all the complaints about Raw's content, which has led to a backlash now of complaints from wrestling fans because so much of Raw each week is edited out. The CRTC in Canada this past week approved of CTV's purchasing of TSN, which may undergo a name change to be called ESPN Canada. It does appear that Smackdown will start running in Canada in September on Headline Sports, which was just given CRTC approval to add live sporting events to its current format. In even bigger news, the FCC staff recommended that the commission change its rules to allow a big four network (ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS) to own a secondary network (UPN or WB), which would eliminate the final legal hurdle in a CBS/WWF deal. The actual approval or rejection of Viacom's dual ownership is expected next month. The deal appearing to be coming to fruition, and there are sources within the TV industry that consider it a done deal except the signing, has boosted WWFE stock to $17.31 per share, which means the people who got it before its public open at $34, are back to being even, and it also means the McMahons are right at the line of being billionaires again

Raw on 3/27 from the Compaq Center in Houston drew a sellout 12,509 paying $382,612 for a show that started SLOOOW and ended hot. Linda McMahon came out first. She went on a long monologue which got no reaction and the crowd was jumping up and down trying to mug for the cameras while paying little attention. She called out Stephanie to apologize. Vince came out, which saved the segment and ordered Stephanie to apologize. Stephanie came out and apologized, but guess what, she didn't mean it. She said she shouldn't have slapped her mom, she should have slapped her dad. I guess she just watched a video of "Wrestling with Shadows." Vince said he was going to beat her ass. She stuck her big ass out there which brought out HHH, who couldn't believe he'd married into such a dysfunctional family (he actually said that line, which was hilarious) and said that Vince needed counseling. Shane came out and ripped on Stephanie and hugged his mom. He then jumped Vince, giving him a fat lip and he and HHH stomped on him while Linda just stood there. Linda finally went to stop Shane but Stephanie got her from behind in a full nelson. So she did watch Billy Jack Haynes as a kid. Stephanie and Linda's struggling was like, real bad. Foley and Show came out. Show clotheslined Foley over the top and they continued to pound on Vince. Finally the Rock came for the save, but Show choke slammed him, HHH gave Foley the Pedigree and KO'd Vince with the title belt. This whole thing went 23 minutes and at least ended strong. Benoit & Guerrero beat Chyna & Jericho in 1:53. Chyna looked totally unhappy out there. Benoit pinned Jericho when Guerrero shook the ropes to mess up his quebrada. They beat up Chyna after until Jericho saved her. Chyna made a comeback until Saturn & Malenko held her for Guerrero to pound her until Too Cool made the save. Vince called out Shane. Linda told him not to. Vince of course didn't listen to logic and was only after a big rating. Crash Holly vs. Bob for the hardcore title ended up with Tazz, Head Bangers, Viscera, Posse and Kaientai all attacking to set up the Battle Royal at Mania. This was hilarious. At one point Crash asked Kaientai for the way out, and Taka jumped him while Funaki put on a ref shirt. He ended up running outside, with about a dozen guys after him, but hid behind a garbage can. Those guys should have seen the camera man shooting him directly, but the cameras missed his escape and run back into the building while locking the doors. Shane did an interview turning down the challenge. They showed Rock on Jay Leno. They didn't show the highlight when Roger Ebert put Rock over saying he saw him on Saturday Night Live (and also had just seen "Beyond the Mat") and basically told him he had talent and to get into acting and as far away from wrestling as possible for his own good. Rock seemed happy with the advice, saying he was working on it. Rikishi beat Road Dogg via count out in 1:08. Rikishi appeared to be hurt as he was dragging his leg. He basically shoved his butt in Dogg's face, who acted as if he was going to vomit and the match just ended. Rock did an interview. Great delivery. What did he say? It doesn't matter... oh sorry. He challenged anyone in the world to face him all at once. Saturn & Malenko beat Hardys in 5:45 of a good match with good heat. Christian & Edge were at ringside trying to be heels, but they seem too nice for it. Christian pulled Saturn out of the way of the swanton, causing Jeff to splat. Edge gave Jeff the spear and Saturn pinned him after a Tiger suplex. Kane beat Angle via DQ in 3:38. They mainly had Kane no-sell for him. Angle had a funny line when he called Kane the big red retard saying that he himself had a lot of retarded fans. Thankfully they kept Backlund away from the ring. Angle was DQ'd for hitting him with a belt, but Kane popped up after the DQ and choke slammed and tombstoned him. Vince said he's team with Rock, who didn't seem thrilled about it. Test beat Snow in :36 when Blackman threw in head, totally overshooting Snow and Test got it for the pin. Trish Stratus talking ability still needs lots of work. Bossman & Buchanan no contest Acolytes when Godfather & D-Lo came out with ho's, including this totally ridiculous looking one with implants the size of New Hampshire. They paid off Acolytes to leave and started pounding on Bossman & Buchanan. Linda announced Foley as a ref for the main event. Moolah stripped Kat down to her bra and panties. She tried to strip Mae as well. X-Pac beat D-Von Dudley in 2:23 with the X-factor when Dogg distracted him. Kane came in and got laid out with 3-D after the match. Tori started bad mouthing Kane, who arose from the dead and went to choke slam her, but X-Pac saved her with a low blow and he and Road Dogg threw Kane over the top rope through a table. Stephanie announced HHH would also ref. Finally, Vince & Rock beat Shane & Show in 11:08. The new music was a heat killer. Show got no pop coming out to his new song. Rock still god a good pop. They pounded on Vince till Rock showed up. Shane's offense was passable but his selling was tremendous. If any promotion had main event heels who sold like Shane & HHH did for Vince, every babyface in the company would be over. All kinds of twists and turns. Vince & Shane brawled outside the ring and both got really gassed but id didn't even matter the heat was so good. The refs kept interfering and fighting each other. Finally Vince KO'd HHH and Foley put the claw on Show and Rock pinned Shane after a rock bottom

For Smackdown tapings on 3/28 in San Antonio at Freeman Coliseum for a sellout crowd which also included Austin (not wearing a neckbrace) at the show. American Force 2000 (Spanky & American Dragon) beat Board of Education in a battle of Shawn Michaels' trainees. For trivia, the first pushed gimmick Michaels ever had was in San Antonio as part of a tag team called American Force with Paul Diamond and Nick Kiniski. Lots of innovative high spots but they screwed some stuff up and it didn't look fluid, but the crowd gave them a hand because they were local. Tony Chimel then hyped Michaels' retirement match for 4/4 against Venum to the live crowd. Dupps beat Scott Vick & ?. Lots of boring chants. They worked hard but again not fluid and even awkward at times. For Heat which airs before Mania, Godfather & Brown beat bs & Rodney. The ho's distracted Pete Gas. If you remember the skits with Terri, Pete is still a virgin. Snow beat Viscera after two head shots with Blackman distracting the ref. Bradshaw NC Buchanan when the partners all ran in. Venis beat Bob Holly in a boring match. Caryn Mawr did her segments dark. Rikishi & Kane beat Dudleys in a non-title match when Rikishi used the banzai on D-Von. HHH did an interview. Vince announced the four-way would be no DQ. Actually, he said that once two guys were eliminated, the last two would have no DQ stips. Foley said since it was no DQ he pulled out a barbed wire 2x4. Venis will ref the Kat vs. Terri match. Both women tried to bribe him during the show with sexual favors. Foley did yet another farewell interview. Crash NC Tazz for the hardcore title. They went backstage with Viscera and Head Bangers involved. Crash ran way. They showed clips later on in the show of Crash still running. Crash was at a wherehouse but the Posse found him but Crash ran away again. Road Dogg & X-Pac beat Edge & Christian. Hardys were on commentary and after a ref bump, Matt used the twist of fate on Christian and Jeff used the swanton on Edge and X-Pac put Dogg on top of Edge for the pin. Foley offered Rock his help at Mania and Rock told him he didn't need his help. Rock beat Angle. HHH and Show came out to interfere with Rock pinning Angle with the rock bottom. HHH, Show and Shane jumped Rock. Vince came out with some chair shots but Shane ended up leaving Vince laying after a belt shot. Shane & Show also left HHH laying. Jericho beat Guerrero via DQ. Match was too short. Jericho used the walls but Benoit interfered for the DQ. Chyna chased Guerrero away (they are doing the gimmick where he's afraid of her) and while Benoit and Jericho fought, Angle came in and laid both out with his finish. Stephanie came out and read a letter forever from a fan. Vince came out and said the interview was giving him a headache and said he thought she wrote the letter herself. Linda came out and berated Vince for what he said to Stephanie. Vince then announced Stephanie vs. Jacqueline as the TV main event. Crash came back all bruised with more guys after him. He said the 24-7 thing had gotten out of hand and that Wrestlemania would be a 15:00 Battle Royal where the first person to pin him gets the title. Malenko beat Scottie Too Hottie to keep the light heavyweight title in a good match. Saturn and Sexay were outside and Scottie had Malenko pinned when Guerrero interfered to help Malenko. Chyna chased the Radicals out. Mae Young came in to give Venis sexual favors but he was quick to kick her out. Hardys beat Test & Albert when Matt pinned Test with the twist of fate. Test & Albert and Edge & Christian all attacked the Hardys. Edge brought a ladder in and he and Christian climbed in but the Dudleys knocked them off. Stephanie won the title in the main event. She stalled and ran until X-Pac and Tori interfered with Tori hitting a DDT and Stephanie scoring the pin in 20 seconds. DX all celebrated. Everyone on the card basically ran in to end the show brawling until Rock and Foley cleaned house. Foley put the socko claw on Shane and Rock gave him rock bottom and a people's elbow with a barbed wire 2x4

Some notes from the 3/23 Smackdown show. Benoit vs. Angle was a real good match until the finish. Some unintentional humor was when Jericho did the run-in and had the walls on Angle, not only was Angle tapping, which makes no sense in a non-match environment, but also Lawler was screaming how Jericho was trying to break Angle's leg, when if that hold were legitimately applied the pressure is clearly on the low back. Lawler almost made up for exposing that after 30 years of wrestling, he doesn't know what a boston crab is, with his line about it should be against the low to injure an Olympic gold medalist. Godfather, who had been unofficially banned from Smackdown after the advertiser controversy, is now in full force and the only differentiation between his appearance, including they are less worried about the costuming of the women than even a month ago, on this show as before is that in his catch phrase he doesn't do the pot smoking references. Bull Buchanan, in his first TV singles match, while not having a good match, looked probably as good as possible against probably one of the few remaining wrestlers in the company that you can't get a good match out of. Mick Foley looked uncharacteristically nervous doing the interview, almost as if he knew he'd talked himself into a corner that he couldn't get out of. Foley comes from the old school of wrestling where he wants his storylines to make sense, which is an impossibility with television shows written week-to-week where instant entertainment is the goal and building long-term storylines is no longer thought about. While he knew he'd get the great crowd pop for the return because he's in a business where everyone is a liar and expected to be by the audience, he also knew he had no explanation for his storyline that made sense and there was no way out of this one except that he did what everyone else did, and did what just about everyone else expected him to do, but in doing so left himself with the same credibility of everyone else. There was nowhere near the pop for Rock for his new entrance music as for the previous one, but this also was the first time. While Linda McMahon isn't a good television personality, particularly her "shocked" look being so contrived, she did take a great bump for a non-worker to sell the finish of the show

Caryn Mawr's stage name at this point is going to be Muffy Mawr

WWF the Music Volume Four was No. 152 on the charts this past week selling 10,176 units. The Armageddon CD was released this past week and is expected to start up very high on the charts. In initial shipment was 400,000 units and there are already places asking for re-orders

The 3/15 Baltimore Sun ran a major feature on Rock. Among his quotes were, "I believe the term pro wrestler has become passe. When people view the character of The Rock, professional wrestler isn't the first thing they think of. They think of larger-than-life television entertainer or artist." Seriously, go down to any playground and ask the kids, or for that matter any place of work with fans and ask the adults what The Rock does for a living. Not one will respond "larger than life television entertainer." Every single one will respond "pro wrestler." Regarding his ethnicity, he said, "So often, men of color in our industry are typecast and stereotyped, and then it becomes very limiting. The Rock has no color. No one looks at the Rock and says, `Oh, yeah, that's the guy that's half this and half that.'" As far as the potential of fans rebelling against things and people who get too popular, he said, "As long as the character is innovative and creative and believes what he's doing, I don't ever think that will happen. The backlash that happened with Hulk Hogan, it was because he did the same thing every single night. People get tired of that. When it's time for change, and when it happens, The Rock again is going to be the guy you love to hate.



For whatever this is worth, and often this doesn't mean a lot, the ads for Backlash on 4/30 are built around Rock, Jericho, HHH and Big Show

The Los Angeles Business Journal had a story about the XFL having a team play out of the Los Angeles Coliseum, saying that while stadium officials and some network honchos are taking the XFL seriously, there is widespread skepticism about it making it. The WWF claims it has enough money earmarked to sustain the league for three seasons. The league is talking about expanding to 16 teams by 2005. The WWF in the article still insists it will own all the teams and isn't interested in outside investors. The WWF said they will be going after a younger audience that the NFL doesn't get, but won't be staged entertainment, with spokes Jayson Berstein saying "We are not looking at turning this into a mockery of the sport." They quoted a top media buyer saying the advertising community has doubts about the league's viability and is going to be a tough sell, because the feeling among advertisers is that it won't be a legitimate football league and will be entertainment rather than sport

Refunds were offered at the house show last weekend because there were so many no-shows with Rock, Show and HHH off for Saturday Night Live plus Chyna, Godfather, Road Dogg also no-showing. Advertising in some markets was never changed to reflect the guys missing because of the NBC show but Rock was pulled from ads for the Cedar Falls, IA show in advertising in the Davenport/Moline market

Shawn Michaels is booked on the Wrestlemania Axcess fan festival but not on the show itself. He's said to be chomping at the bit to get back on television, but the ball isn't in his court and the WWF is rolling without him and to the new fans he isn't even one of the top stars anymore

The WWF Aggression CD is expected to have a huge first week on the charts. On the Handleman's distribution list, which handles both K-Mart and Walmart, it's No. 2 for its first week behind only In Synch. It's No. 7 at the Wherehouse but not in the top ten at Musicland

Big Show was on Conan O'Brien on 3/23. He told the story he told on Jay Leno about getting arrested kissing the first girl he ever kissed when he was 12 because he was already 6-2, 200 and they thought he was a child molester. On Jay Leno, he told the story that he was on a ferris wheel. On Conan he said he was at a roller rink. I guess we can chalk that up to a tall story

The 3/29 USA Today has a major story on Foley leading up to Mania, claiming it will be his final match. He said, "I was much more successful and, going over my taxes now, obviously a lot more profitable being more of a comedy character in 1999 than I ever was being the King of Hardcore. If I'd known I could make more money

making people laugh than making people wince, I'd have done it a long time ago." As for the finish of the 1999 Royal Rumble, Foley said, "Unfortunately, one of our worst moments has been documented on film." Foley said that if it hadn't been for Austin, he'd have retired before this final run. Foley said, knowing that he'd be going back on his word, he spent 20 minutes trying to talk McMahon out of doing the match (the conversation he talked about on TV with Linda apparently was a real conversation with Vince). His wife said his biggest concern in making the decision to do the match was about lying. "It may take some people a while to forgive me, but not as long as it would take me to forgive myself if I didn't do this. Realistically, it's probably going to be the most money that I've ever made. So 15 years from now, when everyone has forgiven me, my kids' college will be taken care of." The story said that most fans expect him to win at Mania. He said, "some people think they need to go out a winner. I happen to think it's more romantic to go out the way I did (putting over the champion clean in a title match). And it's better for business. I firmly believe in doing what's best for the guys who have to stay there, whatever that may be." It said Foley swears (I wish he wouldn't swear about it because he'll wind up being thought of just like every other wrestler) Sunday is his last match in the story, saying he'll come back as commissioner and occasionally as a special referee. "By leaving now, I'm probably giving up on the most profitable year in my career. But I was named after Mickey Mantle. I grew up hearing about how Mickey Mantle suck around one season too long. I didn't want people to make the same comments about Mickey Foley.

Smackdown tapings on 3/21 in Milwaukee drew a sellout 13,432 paying $357,580. 3/22 house show in Champaign, IL drew 9,752 paying $263,783. Show was headlined by HHH over Kane and they did three-ways preparing for WM for both the tag title and IC titles. They did an angle for MTV, basically reprising the ECW angle with Limp Bizkit. Joe C from Kid Rock got attacked by the Dudleys but Rikishi & Too Cool made the save and they all danced together in the ring. Merchandise for the week was $305,669 or $8.56 per head.